D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana Today: Giant Themed Class Options and Feats

A new Unearthed Arcana dropped today, focusing on giant-themed player options. "In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options related to the magic and majesty of giants. This playtest document presents the Path of the Giant barbarian subclass, the Circle of the Primeval druid subclass, the Runecrafter wizard subclass, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons."

Giant Options | Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

Explore character options related to the magic and majesty of giants! This playtest document presents new subclasses for the barbarian, druid, and wizard, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

dnd.wizards.com

New Class options:

• Barbarian: Path of the Giant
• Druid: Circle of the Primeval
• Wizard: Runecrafter Tradition

New Feats:

• Elemental Touched
• Ember of the Fire Giant
• Fury of the Frost Giant
• Guile of the Cloud Giant
• Keeness of the Stone Giant
• Outsized Might
• Rune Carver Apprentice
• Rune Carvwr Adept
• Soul of the Storm Giant
• Vigor of the Hill Giant

WotC's Jeremy Crawford talks Barbarian Path of the Giant here:

 

[Parmandur]

I think Undead are. Maybe even Aberrations or Fiends. A Demonomicon or Undead monster book would be really easy to fill up with ideas from previous editions. Aberrations would be easy to just invent even more alien creatures that are invading the Material Plane from the Far Realm.

Those are, indeed, pretty strong concepts for a similar book! But nothing can touch Dragons for breadth if historical coverage in D&D and popularity.

True story, WotC made a book for 3.5 named "Dragon Magic" that was dictated by the business side, because books with "Dragon" or "Magic" in the title sold better.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I think Undead are. Maybe even Aberrations or Fiends. A Demonomicon or Undead monster book would be really easy to fill up with ideas from previous editions. Aberrations would be easy to just invent even more alien creatures that are invading the Material Plane from the Far Realm.

I'd hope they would do fiends and celestials together in one book so the latter can finally get some (coattail) love in 5e...

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'd hope they would do fiends and celestials together in one book so the latter can finally get some (coattail) love in 5e...

Heh. I would love a whole book solely devoted to celestials in 5e. We barely have any, and most of them are just Angels. I was wishing that Theros would have more Celestials, and it did have a few, but we still don't have many.

It could even give the stat blocks for a bunch of gods. There's only like 4 of those officially in D&D 5e (Bhaal, Auril, Tiamat, Bahamut). I want to be able to kill Corellon! Or whoever the Patron/Matron God of Halflings is!

 

[Parmandur]

Heh. I would love a whole book solely devoted to celestials in 5e. We barely have any, and most of them are just Angels. I was wishing that Theros would have more Celestials, and it did have a few, but we still don't have many.

It could even give the stat blocks for a bunch of gods. There's only like 4 of those officially in D&D 5e (Bhaal, Auril, Tiamat, Bahamut). I want to be able to kill Corellon! Or whoever the Patron/Matron God of Halflings is!

Yeah, I think your second paragraph points out the big problem here for WotC: Fiends are good canon fodder, but Angels are a bit harder to work into a campaign for most tables and can be majorly problematic.

I think they might go there eventually, and I think Wyatt has the chops to handle it respectfully and with complexity.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Just FYI, this is a confusing misuse of the term "Urban Fantasy", especially with the capitalization.

Urban Fantasy does not refer to "fantasy set in cities". Independently that's what those words mean, but it's a very specific (and prolific) subgenre, and it very specifically means that it's set in approximately the real world and usually the modern day, or at least the 20th century and later, but that there is magic present to some degree (usually hidden in the shadows, but not always).

Urban fantasy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is not intended as a criticism of you, just like, if you use that term that way, people are going to get confused, especially those not familiar with Ravnica. Ravnica is rather a renaissance-era high fantasy setting that is set on a bizarre city-world.

TvTropes disagrees. It says "Urban Fantasy almost always takes place on Earth (or an Alternate History Earth)", but admits that not all Urban Fantasy has to take place on Earth. "Urban Fantasy" is just fantasy that combines a modern-ish setting with fantasy. Which Ravnica definitely is. It has coffee, a lot of modern technology, and giant cities where most things are owned by megacorporations/factions.

 

[Azzy]

Already in the 5e Monster Manual. And merrow are mutated merfolk, not Giantkin.

Originally, sea-ogres.

Not a Giant, but a 4-armed Gorilla.

Actually, an ogre-orc cross breed. They're in the MM already, though

Not really a giant, more of a Hobgoblin-Ghoul than a Giant. No reason why it would appear in this kind of book.

Hobgoblin-Ghoul-Troll

Aside from these nitpicks, I tend to agree with you. I doubt we'll see a giant's equivalent of Fizbans.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Originally, sea-ogres.

My point was that they're not that in D&D 5e anymore. And they don't seem like a big enough deal to be changed again.

Actually, an ogre-orc cross breed. They're in the MM already, though

Oh, right. Thanks for the correction.

Hobgoblin-Ghoul-Troll

Yeah, I know. But still a pretty niche creature that doesn't have much connection to Giants as a whole.

 

[Minigiant]

Heh. I would love a whole book solely devoted to celestials in 5e. We barely have any, and most of them are just Angels. I was wishing that Theros would have more Celestials, and it did have a few, but we still don't have many.

It could even give the stat blocks for a bunch of gods. There's only like 4 of those officially in D&D 5e (Bhaal, Auril, Tiamat, Bahamut). I want to be able to kill Corellon! Or whoever the Patron/Matron God of Halflings is!

One thing I always thought was a cool idea would be having a setting where each god had their own race of celestials/fiendish servants.

One gets Angels
One gets Archons
One gets Guardinals
One gets Demons
One gets Devils
One gets Deamons
One gets Reapers
One gets Valkyries and Einharjar?
One gets a whole mess of Demigods.

TvTropes disagrees. It says "Urban Fantasy almost always takes place on Earth (or an Alternate History Earth)", but admits that not all Urban Fantasy has to take place on Earth. "Urban Fantasy" is just fantasy that combines a modern-ish setting with fantasy. Which Ravnica definitely is. It has coffee, a lot of modern technology, and giant cities where most things are owned by megacorporations/factions.

The issues isn't that Ravnica is or isn't Urban fantasy.
The point is tha Ravnica was still Ren-Medieval Fantasy. It's just ONLY the Urban parts. It's still fighters in plate wielding greatswords, clerics in plate wielding maces, bards in poofy clothing, fireballing mages, and leather demon culties.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yeah, I think your second paragraph points out the big problem here for WotC: Fiends are good canon fodder, but Angels are a bit harder to work into a campaign for most tables and can be majorly problematic.

I think they might go there eventually, and I think Wyatt has the chops to handle it respectfully and with complexity.

That's why I suggested doing a combo fiend-celestial book. Thematically, they are obviously related in an equal-but-opposite manner. Fiends will be a big seller, while a book with just celestials would likely be far much less so. Basically, come for the fiends, stay for the celestials...

 

[James Gasik]

Thanks!

• Orcs... I really don't know what connects orcs and giants. I think the hill giants may use orcs as slaves, that's all I remember.
• It would be great to see Large PCs, but I've seen ZeeBashew's explainer on why that is improbable. Lots of rule-y reasons.
• Orcs aren't giantkin AFAIK.
• Agreed that giants can make their own book, but it's not as home-run a concept as dragons are.

1e Rangers counted Orcs as "giant-class humanoids", though, to be fair, that list was full of things that weren't vaguely giants, like Tasloi.